Everyone who's ever intensively played a 'social game' on Facebook knows the simple truth: they're surrounded by fake accounts.
For over two years I managed in excess of 40 Facebook accounts without ever being flagged... I presumed most of my 'friends' were fake as well. Even now the accounts are just sitting there, untouched, unused, but inflating FB's user numbers.
I recognize I was cheating. It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. For my actions, I've chosen to exile myself from FB games altogether. Certainly, not everyone cheats or creates multiple accounts as I did. But I venture that enough 'gamers' do it to seriously distort Facebook's numbers.
When the iPad came out, it had polish and the market to itself. This allowed it to grab a surprising toe-hold in a field that many thought futile. Android 3.0, by contrast, comes to market with a bit less polish and facing stiff competition. The field is no longer empty- Developers must decide whether to focus on Android, WebOS, iOS etc.
The iPad 2 builds evolutionarily on its first-to-market experience... Faster, but with no changes in the physical layout. As a result every iPad 1 app looks as good on the iPad 2 as it did on the original. If you develop for the iPad, you shoot for one resolution (1024 x 768) and one ratio (4:3). While there isn't a guarantee, future displays seem sure to maintain the same 4:3 aspect ratio with a doubling or tripling of resolution. In other words, the transition will be no more difficult than iphone 3 to iphone 4. Screen elements will be no larger or smaller... just the same or clearer.
Because Google doesn't control the hardware (for better or worse) it can't give the same guarantees. Thus, developers face multiple resolutions, e.g., 1024 x 600 (Galaxy Tab 7 and Viewsonic Viewpad) vs. 1280 x 1024 (Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola Xoom) and, at the same time, design for different aspect ratios, e.g., 16:9 or 16:10. This will only get worse when Ice Cream Sandwich throws smart phones into the mix. So... assuming you KNOW you're target audience is running a compatible version of Android... what resolution and aspect ratio do you go with? If you let Android do the corrections... can you expect your app to display with the polish you designed into it? The iPad's 4:3 aspect ratio may be limiting and imperfect... but its constancy allows design to move forward with certitude. If you're spending time and money to develop for a platform, you want to deliver something that looks good now, will look good later, and does so on tens of millions of machines.
Absolutely agree.
If I were representative of most consumers... Amazon would be reporting that E-books outsold hardcopy by several thousand percent... though the only revenue it was receiving was from hard-copy orders. Amazon's 'revelation' is simply marketing fudge.
There is simply no sword of damocles. MPEG-LA has stated it will increase royalty payments, if at all, by no more than 10% every 5 years. Google currently pays $6.5 million to license h.264. In five years, that could rise to a SHOCKING $7.15 million. Five years after that, Google could be looking at license fees of $7.865 million!!! In other words... it's just silly to argue that Google, is worried it might find itself paying (in 10 years) licensing fees of less than.00005% its current market cap.
- Slashdot allows me to filter information by acting as a specialized and trusted news aggregator. It saves me from wading through news that is (1) anonymously sourced, (2) anonymously submitted, (3) green-lit by the biased department of "oh please let this be true" and (4) distributed with a flame-bait lead that something is about to "blow up in the face" of a major computer company.
Wrong. The utility of any tool is judged by what it can do, not by what it can't.
The Economist COULD print hot nude photos. It won't.
Club COULD print incisive articles on Pakistan's diplomacy with China and India. It won't.
As for the iPhone, most people I know wouldn't recognize Steve Jobs if he knocked on their door. They buy it because of what it CAN do; which it does better than most phones.
I'm happy to brick my iPhone when Android and the Palm Pre show their everyday superiority. But I'm not going to buy an inferior product just because it's "open". It's the responsibility of handset makers to sell a product that beats the "closed" iPhone.
I see the battle a little differently. My block log reads:
16:58, 29 December 2006 Jimbo Wales (Talk | contribs) blocked "Snorklefish (Talk | contribs)" with an expiry time of indefinite (WP:NPA, see edit to User_talk:Fram). Looking at User_Talk:Fram, I surmised it had something to do with Darrin McGillis. Going back to the McGillis article, I realized Jimbo had deleted the entire article and left no trace. He added "please do not recreate without emailing me privately first..."
So I was banned without prior warning and all trace of what I had done wrong was deleted. No one could see if my comments were sourced or pulled out of my ass. When one person holds such power over information the potential for abuse is manifest. Can we trust Jimbo Wales to always use his influence benevolently? For me, the answer is a qualified "maybe." I was reinstated because no one could figure out why I had been banned in the first place and Jimbo didn't respond to inquiries. Hardly a confidence inspiring result.
Would it matter? Absolutely. Evolution works on far grander time scales. Few are the species that have emerged over the course of 10,000 years. The climb from the ooze to land too hundreds of millions of years. The rise of the mammals, the emergence of primates, the appearance of immediate human predecessors - none could have occurred via evolution if you constrain the world to 6,000 years old. Changes would occur, but not the glorious diversity of life as we know it.
I often hear people talking with surprise or frustration about the lack of 3g service or super-broadband speeds to the home. The answer is simple economics- lack of consumer demand. With cellular, most people just don't see the need. (Think of all the people still using dial-up!) Until the iPhone, the idea of watching video or surfing the net was a thoroughly uncomfortable experience. My phone is 3G but I chucked the data package after two months. Of course Slashdot is filled with early adopters and folks who demand more, but by my reckoning, very few people care. Since the general public doesn't care, there's little reason to expand the high-speed cellular network. In the developing world, the economics are different. You're not replacing an old system, you're building a system from scratch. When you build a system from scratch it's logical to skip 2G and go straight to 3G
The iPhone has probably changed the balance in the U.S. The general public has a strong reason to wish for 3G. I'll chuck my 3g phone in an instant for a 3g iPhone. Then I'll complain about the lack of 4G.
This spat is an example of Microsoft's decision to fight too many battles. It always seemed Microsoft picked a target, e.g., Netscape, and then destroyed it. By carefully choosing its battles, Microsoft ensured the odds were stacked in its favor. It seems to have moved away from that strategy. Lots of little and not so little companies are in open, pitched battles with Microsoft.
IBM is fighting lock-in by OOXML. Google has MSFT on the defense in the internet services arena. Linux has a dominate presence in the server space. Mozilla is a growing and viable alternative to IE7 and Apple, though a bit player in TOTAL sales, is making strong gains in the desktop market and the iPod continues to stomp the Zune. Sony and Nintendo have ensured that Xbox won't make real money for years to come, if ever.
I suggest MSFT has fallen victim to a classic blunder. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: you can't fight an entire industry, even if you're the biggest punk around.
Though I was never an administrator, I was banned by Jimbo Wales. He did so without warning, without contacting me or leaving an explanation as to why I was banned. Moreover, the entire article, (on Darrin McGillis), as well as all discussions and the change log were completely deleted. Obviously, whatever happened occurred behind "closed doors" and was then obscured at the very top.
This is the problem with a secret mailing list and secrecy generally. It's fine to talk privately, but when decisions are made without the input of the community, or without the ability of the community to vet the process, then the conditions are ripe for corruption, anger and paranoia.
Not long ago, Skadhi Myers blogged about anti-homosexuality attitudes in her high school. In doing so she quoted the bigoted facebook comments of jock and student body president Andrew Jallon:
Okay this is really random but it has to deal with the comment about homosexuality issue that Sibley brought up. Honestly why must our country keep discussing this issue. We all know it's wrong and that it just shouldn't be that way. If you want to go with the same sex move somewhere else. Please before we ship yah off. Honestly just get rid of them and then we won't have this issue. Just ship them to Canada. But yah homosexuality is just wrong so just say no and get over it. It's never gonna be right so yah!!
Then someone from ScienceBlogs linked to her post because it was well written and she's the daughter of P.Z. Myers... a fairly well known blogger. So the meme really picks up speed. The next thing you Andrew finds he's coming under attack for quotes he never expected to be disseminated across the continents.
But reading the quote, one wonders who is this Andrew Jallon guy. Well, a quick google and you can see check out his discus and shotput attempts (not very good). PUBLIC real-estate tax records give a strong implication as to where he lives. And finally, Andrew Jallon's bigoted comments end up on Slashdot. Did he expect this? Should he have expected it. Should we all be paranoid about every post...lest someone take it and run?
I work for the courts (OMG IAAFL). It is understood that judges live under the spotlight. To avoid the risks created by the spotlight, the rule judges live by is to say nothing they wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the newspaper... too many "private" conservations have created the downfall of too many judges and politicians.
The thing about the internet... is that you never know when lighting will strike and make YOU the target of public interest.
Wouldn't it have been refreshing for Warren Buffet to set aside a few billion to fund a non-profit IP organization? I'd have them buy copyrights, patents and other IP... then turn-around and release the rights to the world.
As a lawyer, I thought the court's holding was somewhat humorous. Wrote the court:
We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalis(m).' The shield law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what petitioners did here,
The thing is, when the court applied the journalists' shield law to bloggers, they implicitly accepted that bloggers were "legitimate" journalists. The court did precisely what they said they didn't do.
The beauty of 2.4 Ghz spectrum has been the incredible innovation by companies taking advantage of this "free" spectrum. In my dreams, here's what I'd like to see...
A somewhat non-evil company buys spectrum. Next, they license that spectrum to all comers subject to non-discriminatory, one time fees and reasonable rules. E.g., for every wireless transmitter sold by "Belkin" and transmitting at X watts, "Belkin" would pay a 'tax' of $Z. If Belkin wants to sell a 2X watt device, they'd pay $5Z. If Belkin wants to sell a 3X watt device, they'd pay, e.g., $15Z.
The end user would still get the benefit of massive competition among protocols and equipment makers that has made 2.4 an incredible success. Plus, by charging a fee for the right to "pollute" the airwaves, we'd help keep things clean. No need for high-performance wireless? Use 2.4. Want something for VOIP, pay a little more and use a low power device on the fresh spectrum. Need a robust and thick connection? Buy the right to pollute the fresh spectrum. By prioritizing by customer need, we'd keep the spectrum clean for a lot longer.
[In the classic scam] defendents settle for $100 million, the plaintiffs' law firm get $95 million of it, $5 million is offered to the plaintiff class if they respond to request 20 pages of paperwork to apply for their $0.75 payout; a total of $120 thousand is actually distributed to the plaintiff class members and "their" lawyers pocket the balance.
If I recall, this is precisely what happened in the case of Strawargument v. UrbanLegend. Or to be more blunt, I think your engaging in ridiculous hyperbole to make a point that is distinguishable from the overwhelming majority of class-action lawsuits.
We're not striving for mediocrity... we're striving for perfection.
Mental illness in third world countries is not as serious a problem. Why? To vastly oversimply, life and work in the third world is more flexible and tolerant of mental deficiencies.
Imagine, for example, a first world, mentally-ill person with a menial job at Mcburger King. Sometimes they show up late. Sometimes they skip baths. Sometimes they cry for no apparent reason at all. To what result? Now imagine that same person as a sheep herder in Kazakstahn. The sheep don't care if he's 40 minutes late getting up. They don't care if he stinks. And they don't care if he cries like a child.
Essentially, the mentally ill cannot reasonable function under the requirements of a first-world economy. Because they cannot function in a first-world society, they grow farther and farther from it. In contrast, the impoverished nature of third world economies allows the mentally ill to reasonably participate in society. As participants, there is a real path for increased particpation to the extent their illness subsides.
Here's a more technical analogy. In the early seventies, hard-drive heads flew at heights around 100 nanometers. Today's heads fly at about 10 nanometers. The lesson: First world demands have rendered obsolete machines that were perfectly acceptable 30 years. The first world is doing the same with people. Welcome to the machine.
Even if the focus is on globabl warming, there's another externality to oil consumption that deserves being mentioned: Oil revenues prop up hosts of nasty regimes. The enabling of these regimes is a cost to the world brought about, in part, by U.S. consumption. The less money we funnel to Venezeuala, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc..., the better.
A large increase in the gas tax, (hopefully coupled with corresponding decreases in other U.S. taxes), would be a step forward in fight against global warming, would garner much needed good-will among Western Europe, and would hit Iran and Venezuala hard. That's a good thing.
It's for kids 8 and up. Still, my 5 year old has learned to wire and trouble-shoot a simple circuit. He's now able to identify capcitors and resistors on a computer motherboard and tell his grandmother, (essentially), what it does. He understands, (again essentially), that a computers and other electronics are just a whole bunch of simple parts assembled into really long chains.
My family's first computer was a Macintosh 512k. The problem with the Mac was two-fold... first it's GUI and integration made it a reasonably seemless appliance. I spent hours on macpaint, writing book-reports, etc... Since there were so few games, I got things done.
My friend, however, had an IBM compatible. He would battle for days trying to get some game running. And through battle, he learned about text based shells, directories, tweaking parameters, reconciling hardware conflicts and what not. In other words, the IBM compatible and especially the software, was such junk that my friend was forced to LEARN about the computer's dark underbelly if he was to gain the reward of some random war game.
What was the result? Well I remember when I first opened up an internet browser... suddenly, I had to enter in an address! I had no idea what http: meant, I just knew I had to enter it. ftp: freaked me out. I had essentially gone back to the future.
My friend is now a succesful computer programmer. I'm now comfortable with basic shell commands, upgrading my computer, and what not. But I can't help but think that my computer skills would have been vastly accelerated if my parents had purchased a crappy IBM compatible and a copy of space war.
Twenty five years later, I love OS X. But I intend to introduce a little struggle into my son's computer experience. You know...like forcing him to trouble-shoot the video card settings before he can play Hunt the Wumpus.
Everyone thinks Apple and Pixar were joined at the hip. This wasn't a big deal because Pixar was a relatively minor player in the content business.
A Disney/Apple connection is different. Will GE play ball with iTMS if they think Apple is making backroom deals with Disney? More broadly, if Apple is seen to be cozying up with one content provider, don't they risk estrangement from other content providers.
This is a great deal for Pixar, but Jobs is saddling Apple with some real perception problems at the corporate to corporate level.
I can't wait to transfer HD video over USB2.
More seriously, if not Firewire, then what? Is it realistic to expect USB to scale to significantly faster speeds over longer distances?
If Apple wants to be at the center of the A/V world, I suggest they build a machine that can physically sit at the center of a typical A/V ensemble. The mini's size makes sense on a crowded desk. But putting a mini on top of your tower of A/V components looks silly and feels cheap.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone who's ever intensively played a 'social game' on Facebook knows the simple truth: they're surrounded by fake accounts. For over two years I managed in excess of 40 Facebook accounts without ever being flagged... I presumed most of my 'friends' were fake as well. Even now the accounts are just sitting there, untouched, unused, but inflating FB's user numbers.
I recognize I was cheating. It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. For my actions, I've chosen to exile myself from FB games altogether. Certainly, not everyone cheats or creates multiple accounts as I did. But I venture that enough 'gamers' do it to seriously distort Facebook's numbers.
When the iPad came out, it had polish and the market to itself. This allowed it to grab a surprising toe-hold in a field that many thought futile. Android 3.0, by contrast, comes to market with a bit less polish and facing stiff competition. The field is no longer empty- Developers must decide whether to focus on Android, WebOS, iOS etc.
The iPad 2 builds evolutionarily on its first-to-market experience... Faster, but with no changes in the physical layout. As a result every iPad 1 app looks as good on the iPad 2 as it did on the original. If you develop for the iPad, you shoot for one resolution (1024 x 768) and one ratio (4:3). While there isn't a guarantee, future displays seem sure to maintain the same 4:3 aspect ratio with a doubling or tripling of resolution. In other words, the transition will be no more difficult than iphone 3 to iphone 4. Screen elements will be no larger or smaller... just the same or clearer.
Because Google doesn't control the hardware (for better or worse) it can't give the same guarantees. Thus, developers face multiple resolutions, e.g., 1024 x 600 (Galaxy Tab 7 and Viewsonic Viewpad) vs. 1280 x 1024 (Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola Xoom) and, at the same time, design for different aspect ratios, e.g., 16:9 or 16:10. This will only get worse when Ice Cream Sandwich throws smart phones into the mix. So... assuming you KNOW you're target audience is running a compatible version of Android... what resolution and aspect ratio do you go with? If you let Android do the corrections... can you expect your app to display with the polish you designed into it? The iPad's 4:3 aspect ratio may be limiting and imperfect... but its constancy allows design to move forward with certitude. If you're spending time and money to develop for a platform, you want to deliver something that looks good now, will look good later, and does so on tens of millions of machines.
Absolutely agree. If I were representative of most consumers... Amazon would be reporting that E-books outsold hardcopy by several thousand percent... though the only revenue it was receiving was from hard-copy orders. Amazon's 'revelation' is simply marketing fudge.
There is simply no sword of damocles. MPEG-LA has stated it will increase royalty payments, if at all, by no more than 10% every 5 years. Google currently pays $6.5 million to license h.264. In five years, that could rise to a SHOCKING $7.15 million. Five years after that, Google could be looking at license fees of $7.865 million!!! In other words... it's just silly to argue that Google, is worried it might find itself paying (in 10 years) licensing fees of less than .00005% its current market cap.
- Slashdot allows me to filter information by acting as a specialized and trusted news aggregator. It saves me from wading through news that is
(1) anonymously sourced,
(2) anonymously submitted,
(3) green-lit by the biased department of "oh please let this be true" and
(4) distributed with a flame-bait lead that something is about to "blow up in the face" of a major computer company.
WTF Slashdot?
Wrong. The utility of any tool is judged by what it can do, not by what it can't.
The Economist COULD print hot nude photos. It won't. Club COULD print incisive articles on Pakistan's diplomacy with China and India. It won't.
As for the iPhone, most people I know wouldn't recognize Steve Jobs if he knocked on their door. They buy it because of what it CAN do; which it does better than most phones.
I'm happy to brick my iPhone when Android and the Palm Pre show their everyday superiority. But I'm not going to buy an inferior product just because it's "open". It's the responsibility of handset makers to sell a product that beats the "closed" iPhone.
So I was banned without prior warning and all trace of what I had done wrong was deleted. No one could see if my comments were sourced or pulled out of my ass. When one person holds such power over information the potential for abuse is manifest. Can we trust Jimbo Wales to always use his influence benevolently? For me, the answer is a qualified "maybe." I was reinstated because no one could figure out why I had been banned in the first place and Jimbo didn't respond to inquiries. Hardly a confidence inspiring result.
Would it matter? Absolutely. Evolution works on far grander time scales. Few are the species that have emerged over the course of 10,000 years. The climb from the ooze to land too hundreds of millions of years. The rise of the mammals, the emergence of primates, the appearance of immediate human predecessors - none could have occurred via evolution if you constrain the world to 6,000 years old. Changes would occur, but not the glorious diversity of life as we know it.
The iPhone has probably changed the balance in the U.S. The general public has a strong reason to wish for 3G. I'll chuck my 3g phone in an instant for a 3g iPhone. Then I'll complain about the lack of 4G.
IBM is fighting lock-in by OOXML. Google has MSFT on the defense in the internet services arena. Linux has a dominate presence in the server space. Mozilla is a growing and viable alternative to IE7 and Apple, though a bit player in TOTAL sales, is making strong gains in the desktop market and the iPod continues to stomp the Zune. Sony and Nintendo have ensured that Xbox won't make real money for years to come, if ever.
I suggest MSFT has fallen victim to a classic blunder. The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: you can't fight an entire industry, even if you're the biggest punk around.
This is the problem with a secret mailing list and secrecy generally. It's fine to talk privately, but when decisions are made without the input of the community, or without the ability of the community to vet the process, then the conditions are ripe for corruption, anger and paranoia.
But reading the quote, one wonders who is this Andrew Jallon guy. Well, a quick google and you can see check out his discus and shotput attempts (not very good). PUBLIC real-estate tax records give a strong implication as to where he lives. And finally, Andrew Jallon's bigoted comments end up on Slashdot. Did he expect this? Should he have expected it. Should we all be paranoid about every post...lest someone take it and run?
I work for the courts (OMG IAAFL). It is understood that judges live under the spotlight. To avoid the risks created by the spotlight, the rule judges live by is to say nothing they wouldn't mind seeing on the front page of the newspaper... too many "private" conservations have created the downfall of too many judges and politicians. The thing about the internet... is that you never know when lighting will strike and make YOU the target of public interest.
Wouldn't it have been refreshing for Warren Buffet to set aside a few billion to fund a non-profit IP organization? I'd have them buy copyrights, patents and other IP... then turn-around and release the rights to the world.
The beauty of 2.4 Ghz spectrum has been the incredible innovation by companies taking advantage of this "free" spectrum. In my dreams, here's what I'd like to see...
A somewhat non-evil company buys spectrum. Next, they license that spectrum to all comers subject to non-discriminatory, one time fees and reasonable rules. E.g., for every wireless transmitter sold by "Belkin" and transmitting at X watts, "Belkin" would pay a 'tax' of $Z. If Belkin wants to sell a 2X watt device, they'd pay $5Z. If Belkin wants to sell a 3X watt device, they'd pay, e.g., $15Z.
The end user would still get the benefit of massive competition among protocols and equipment makers that has made 2.4 an incredible success. Plus, by charging a fee for the right to "pollute" the airwaves, we'd help keep things clean. No need for high-performance wireless? Use 2.4. Want something for VOIP, pay a little more and use a low power device on the fresh spectrum. Need a robust and thick connection? Buy the right to pollute the fresh spectrum. By prioritizing by customer need, we'd keep the spectrum clean for a lot longer.
If I recall, this is precisely what happened in the case of Strawargument v. UrbanLegend. Or to be more blunt, I think your engaging in ridiculous hyperbole to make a point that is distinguishable from the overwhelming majority of class-action lawsuits.
Mental illness in third world countries is not as serious a problem. Why? To vastly oversimply, life and work in the third world is more flexible and tolerant of mental deficiencies.
Imagine, for example, a first world, mentally-ill person with a menial job at Mcburger King. Sometimes they show up late. Sometimes they skip baths. Sometimes they cry for no apparent reason at all. To what result? Now imagine that same person as a sheep herder in Kazakstahn. The sheep don't care if he's 40 minutes late getting up. They don't care if he stinks. And they don't care if he cries like a child.
Essentially, the mentally ill cannot reasonable function under the requirements of a first-world economy. Because they cannot function in a first-world society, they grow farther and farther from it. In contrast, the impoverished nature of third world economies allows the mentally ill to reasonably participate in society. As participants, there is a real path for increased particpation to the extent their illness subsides.
Here's a more technical analogy. In the early seventies, hard-drive heads flew at heights around 100 nanometers. Today's heads fly at about 10 nanometers. The lesson: First world demands have rendered obsolete machines that were perfectly acceptable 30 years. The first world is doing the same with people. Welcome to the machine.
Even if the focus is on globabl warming, there's another externality to oil consumption that deserves being mentioned: Oil revenues prop up hosts of nasty regimes. The enabling of these regimes is a cost to the world brought about, in part, by U.S. consumption. The less money we funnel to Venezeuala, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc..., the better. A large increase in the gas tax, (hopefully coupled with corresponding decreases in other U.S. taxes), would be a step forward in fight against global warming, would garner much needed good-will among Western Europe, and would hit Iran and Venezuala hard. That's a good thing.
Another option from Radioshack is one of their Electronics "Snap-Kits".
It's for kids 8 and up. Still, my 5 year old has learned to wire and trouble-shoot a simple circuit. He's now able to identify capcitors and resistors on a computer motherboard and tell his grandmother, (essentially), what it does. He understands, (again essentially), that a computers and other electronics are just a whole bunch of simple parts assembled into really long chains.
My family's first computer was a Macintosh 512k. The problem with the Mac was two-fold... first it's GUI and integration made it a reasonably seemless appliance. I spent hours on macpaint, writing book-reports, etc... Since there were so few games, I got things done.
My friend, however, had an IBM compatible. He would battle for days trying to get some game running. And through battle, he learned about text based shells, directories, tweaking parameters, reconciling hardware conflicts and what not. In other words, the IBM compatible and especially the software, was such junk that my friend was forced to LEARN about the computer's dark underbelly if he was to gain the reward of some random war game.
What was the result? Well I remember when I first opened up an internet browser... suddenly, I had to enter in an address! I had no idea what http: meant, I just knew I had to enter it. ftp: freaked me out. I had essentially gone back to the future. My friend is now a succesful computer programmer. I'm now comfortable with basic shell commands, upgrading my computer, and what not. But I can't help but think that my computer skills would have been vastly accelerated if my parents had purchased a crappy IBM compatible and a copy of space war. Twenty five years later, I love OS X. But I intend to introduce a little struggle into my son's computer experience. You know...like forcing him to trouble-shoot the video card settings before he can play Hunt the Wumpus.
According to the Tax Foundation, 31 states higher tax rates on a per capita income basis. http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxesbystat e2005/
Everyone thinks Apple and Pixar were joined at the hip. This wasn't a big deal because Pixar was a relatively minor player in the content business.
A Disney/Apple connection is different. Will GE play ball with iTMS if they think Apple is making backroom deals with Disney? More broadly, if Apple is seen to be cozying up with one content provider, don't they risk estrangement from other content providers.
This is a great deal for Pixar, but Jobs is saddling Apple with some real perception problems at the corporate to corporate level.
I can't wait to transfer HD video over USB2. More seriously, if not Firewire, then what? Is it realistic to expect USB to scale to significantly faster speeds over longer distances?
If Apple wants to be at the center of the A/V world, I suggest they build a machine that can physically sit at the center of a typical A/V ensemble. The mini's size makes sense on a crowded desk. But putting a mini on top of your tower of A/V components looks silly and feels cheap.